Kevin Hart’s Speedkore-built 1970 Hemi ‘Cuda, nicknamed ‘Menace,’ stunned crowds at the 2017 Grand National Roadster Show — then was seriously crashed, leaving fans mourning a car they’d followed for years. According to commenters tracking its fate, the ‘Cuda came back rebuilt with a modern Hellcat crate engine, giving a fifty-year-old muscle car icon more power than it ever had from the factory. This is the story of a show-stopping build that refused to stay wrecked.
Some show cars live a quiet life — built once, trailered to events, admired, and retired without incident. This 1970 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda, built by Speedkore and once owned by Kevin Hart, did not get that ending. Nicknamed ‘Menace,’ the car turned heads at the 2017 Grand National Roadster Show looking every bit like a museum piece. What almost nobody watching that reveal could have predicted is what happened to it afterward — a crash serious enough that fans openly mourned the car online, followed by a rebuild that gave it something no factory Hemi ‘Cuda ever had under the hood. The story of this car is really two stories, and the second one is stranger than the first.
A Speedkore Build Built to Turn Heads at GNRS
When this ‘Cuda debuted at the Grand National Roadster Show in 2017, it represented Speedkore at the top of its game — the Wisconsin-based shop known for taking iconic muscle cars and rebuilding them with modern chassis, suspension, and fabrication work while keeping the silhouette instantly recognizable. Kevin Hart’s ownership added a layer of visibility that most builds never get, turning what could have been just another beautifully finished show car into a genuine media moment covered by outlets like MuscleCar Connection. Commenters on the reveal video didn’t hold back, calling it ‘a work of art’ and singling out its paint and stance.
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The Crash That Fans Are Still Talking About
What makes this particular ‘Cuda’s story unusual is what came after the spotlight. According to viewers following the car’s history in the comments, ‘Menace’ was later involved in a serious accident — one severe enough that some fans referred to the car as ‘in the grave’ and offered condolences as if it were a living thing. For a build this well-known, with a celebrity owner and a magazine-quality reveal, the crash hit different than it would for an anonymous restomod; people who had watched the original build videos felt like they were losing something they’d followed for years.
Rebuilt With a Hellcat Heart
Rather than end there, ‘Menace’ got a second act. Per commenters tracking the rebuild, the car came back with a Hellcat crate engine under the hood — a supercharged 6.2-liter V8 that, in stock form, is rated at over 700 horsepower and represents Dodge’s modern answer to the muscle car horsepower wars. Dropping a Hellcat crate engine into a 1970 Hemi ‘Cuda is a deliberate irony: the original Hemi was the top of Chrysler’s performance ladder in 1970, and fifty-plus years later, its factory-built successor is being used to bring a wrecked example of that same car back from the dead.
Why the Hemi ‘Cuda Commands This Kind of Attention
Plymouth built the ‘Cuda in far smaller numbers than the mainstream Barracuda, and the Hemi-powered versions specifically are among the rarest and most valuable muscle cars from the era, with surviving factory originals regularly selling for seven figures at auction. That rarity is exactly why a modified, non-numbers-matching build like this one can still generate the kind of emotional reaction seen in the comments — the ‘Cuda shape alone carries decades of mythology, whether or not the specific car under that shape is a factory-original Hemi or a Speedkore recreation with a modern heart transplant.
What Speedkore’s Approach Says About Modern Restomods
Speedkore’s signature move — pairing a period-correct body and stance with a modern drivetrain and chassis — reflects where high-end muscle car building has moved over the past decade. Rather than treating originality as sacred, shops like Speedkore treat the exterior silhouette as the car’s identity and everything underneath as fair game for improvement, which is exactly the mindset that made swapping in a Hellcat engine after the crash feel like a natural next step rather than a betrayal of the original build.
Celebrity Ownership and the Life of a Show Car
Kevin Hart’s connection to the car added a layer most builds never get — broader visibility, more eyes on every update, and a fanbase invested in the car’s fate beyond typical muscle car enthusiasts. That visibility cuts both ways: when the car looked incredible at GNRS, it made headlines; when it crashed, the reaction was proportionally larger. Few show cars get followed closely enough that a crash becomes newsworthy in its own right, but ‘Menace’ clearly crossed that threshold.
A Cuda That Refused to Stay Wrecked
Whatever condition ‘Menace’ is in today, its story arc — stunning reveal, public setback, defiant rebuild with even more power than before — is a more compelling narrative than most show cars ever get to tell. It’s proof that a build’s value isn’t only in the hours spent before its first reveal; sometimes the more interesting chapter is what a shop and an owner choose to do after everything goes wrong.
Why the Grand National Roadster Show Is the Right Stage for This Story
The Grand National Roadster Show, held annually in Southern California, is one of the oldest and most prestigious custom car events in the country, historically built around crowning the year’s best roadster but increasingly used by high-end shops like Speedkore to debut builds meant for national attention. Premiering ‘Menace’ there rather than at a smaller regional show was a deliberate choice — GNRS draws exactly the kind of media coverage, from outlets like MuscleCar Connection, that turns a private commission into a car people follow for years afterward. That visibility is precisely why so many commenters were able to track the car’s fate well past its initial reveal, from the crash to the Hellcat-powered rebuild — a level of ongoing public interest that a quieter debut simply wouldn’t have generated. Shops that build for GNRS specifically often over-engineer the visual details — paint depth, panel gaps, engine bay presentation — knowing the show draws judges and photographers who will scrutinize every angle. Whatever ultimately happened to ‘Menace’ after its accident, the fact that so many fans immediately recognized the car and cared about its fate traces directly back to how memorable that first GNRS appearance actually was.
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